Type-die.



' J DUNCAN.

x T Y r E n IE. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII 8.

xx i j M UNITED? STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JOSEPH s. DUNCAN, or CHICAGO, rumors, ASSIGNOR TO annnnssoenarn COMPANY, or cmcneo, ILLINQIS, a coaron rIoN or ILLINOIS.

TYPE-DIE.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, J osnrn S. DUNCAN, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and State of Illinois, have invented certain new and use ful Improvements in Type-Dies, of-which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to dies which are employed in connection with suitable punches for producing printing characters in relief on sheet metal blanks or plates. Dies of this general character, adapted to produce printing devices such as shown in my Letters Patent No. 1,018,459, December 24, 1912, and in accordance with the method set forth in said patent, are disclosed in Letters Patent No. 1,048,460 and No. 1,048,461, also granted to me December 24, 1912. The idea of producing printing characters in relief on metal plates or blanks by means of punches and dies has been practised in a restricted manner for some time, but, prior to the inventions disclosed in the above-mentioned patents it was not possible to space the printing characters in a line to correspond in a proper manner with the usual spacing of. type-written impressions and, consequently, the impressions produced from the stamped-up printing characters did not simulate'typewriting as closely as desired for addressing letters, envelops, and for other work which is customarily performed on a typewriter. It was customary, therefore, to provide upper case characters only on the printing devices for the reason that the comparatively wide spacing necessitated by the stamping operation was notso noticeable with upper case characters as it was with lower case characters, or with upper and lower case characters in combination.

The dies disclosed in my Patents Nos. 1,048,460 and 1,048,461, were designed to produce printing characters on metal plates much closer together than it had formerly been possible to arrange them. Prior to these inventions the characters could not be spaced closer together than eightcharac: ters to the inch, but, with the dies disclosed in the aforesaidpatents, ten characters to the inch can be stamped, thus making it pos sible to employ both upper and lower case characters on the same plate and spaced to correspond with typewriter spacing.

Specification of Letters Patent. Application filed June 13, 1913,

Patented July 7, 1914.

Serial No. 773,430.

My present invention has for its object broadly, to facilitate the production of printing characters in relief on metal plates or blanks by the use of punches and dies and, more specifically, to enable the production of these type characters in close juxtaposition without distorting adjacent charactors, so that characters as small as elite, spaced twelve characters to the inch, may be produced.

In the formation of printing characters by punches and dies, and particularly when they are produced close together, the previously formed character is likely to become displaced during the formation of the next character; that is to say, in displacing the metal to form a character there is a tendency to cause the previously formed character to tilt, so that the printing faces of the charactors do not lie in a single plane as they should to produce clear and distinct impressions. My present invention, therefore, is designed to retain the previously formed character in its original position during the formation of the next adjacent character, so that when all of the characters are formed their printing faces will lie in a common plane to produce clear and equally distinct impressions.

In the accompanying drawings illustrating a preferred embodiment of the invention-Figure 1 is a fragmentary side elevation of a printing device provided with a plurality of printing characters and showing the punch and die employed in forming the characters; F ig. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view taken substantially on the line 2-2 of Fig. 3; Fig. 3 is a transverse sectional view taken substantially on the line 3 3 of- Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is a sectionalview on the line 4-4 of Fig. 3; Fig; 5 is an end view of my improved die; Fig. 6 is a perspective view of the die; Fig. 7 is an end view of a modifled-form of the die; and Fig. 8 is an end view of a die similar to that shown in Fig. 5 but constructed to produce a different letter.

It will, be apparent from an inspection of the drawings t at I employ a punch 10 of suitable construction tofcooperate with my improved die 11 to stamp up. the printin characters 12 on one face of a sheet netiil blank 13. The punch-1O is rovided at its operating end with a suite 1e elevated character-forming face 14 surrounded, in the i amass? embodiment illustrated, by a flat shoulder 16.

The die 11, which cotiperates with thepunch -10, is provided at its operating end 5 with a channel or recess extending transversely across the end of the die and forming at its bottom a flat face 17,the side Walls of the channel forming lips 18 and 19 which. project longitudinally of the die is beyond the face 17. The character-forming depression 20, complementary to the character-forming elevation 14 on the punch, s formed on the face 17 between the lips 18 and 19. At one side of the face 17 the wall 15 of the die is inclined, as indicated by 21, and at the other side there is provided a ledge 22 which constitutes, in efl'ect, the dominant feature of the present invention. The face of the ledge is parallel with the face 17 and is located below the face 17 a distance equal to the depth of the characterforming depression therein, the face of the ledge being also located below the, edges of the lips 18 and 19 a distance equal to the height of the printing face 9f the characterabove the plane of the plate from which the character is formed. The ledge extends at least from lip l8 tothe lip 19 and, for convenience of manufacture, the so lips are preferably cut away to permit the extension of the ledge therethrough, as shown in. Figs. 5 and 6; although as previously stated, the led e may terminate in some instances at the lips as shown in Fig. 7. It will be observed that the face of the lip- 18 is narrower than the face of the lip 19. This difierence results from the inclination of the walls of the die adjacent said faces, the outer wall of the lip- 18 being to inclined sufficiently as shown inFig'. 3 to clearv the line of characters previously formed. v

. When the punch and die arebrought into cocperative relation the metal of the plate at the top and bottom of the character is maintained in its normal plane by the lips- 18 and 19, (Fig. 3) the edges of which, when the punch and die are forced together, are spaced from the shoulder 16 of the unch a distance sufiicient to retain the meta at the top and bottom of the character in its original plane by engagement of the lips therewith. During the formation of the character, referring to Fig. 2, the metal at the left of the character is bent upwardly from its original plane and the metal at the rightof the character, betweenwthe previously formed character and the character being formed, is elevated or drawn upwardly some little distance above its original position. The distortion of the metal at the right of the character being formed has a tendency to'dis from lts proper position, by tilting or otherct wise, so that its face will not lie in a plane place the previously formed character parallel with the plane of the face of the plate, and such displacement is especially noticeable where the characters are formed in close juxtaposition. To obviate this displacement of a previously formed character the ledge 22, as will be observed by reference to Figs. 9 and 4, isconstructed and positioned to form a gage or abutment adapted to overlie and engage the face of the previously formed character and prevent it from being displaced by tilting, or otherwise, and without distorting said face. The character being formed by the punch and die as' shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3 is the letter l, while the character previously formed and shownat the right of the character' being formed is the letter Mflmade by a die similar to that shown in Fig. 8. The ledge will overlie, as shown, only a portion of a wide letter, such as M, while it will substantially cover a narrower letter, but in any event it will overlie .the previously formed character suficiently to hold the same against displacement during the formation of a succeeding character. It will be manifest from the foregoing that the ledge 21 is so formed and positioned that itengages the printing face of a previously formed printing character and retains said character in its original posi- 85 tion, thereby preventing displacement of the characters by tilting, or otherwise, and insuring that the printing faces of all the,

printing characters in a line will be disposed in a common plane to produce equally clear. and distinct impressions. 1

While the punch and die shown and described are particularly eficient in the formation of very small characters commonly known as elite characters, it will be obvious that their use in larger sizes would be desirable and advantageous and that the size of r the punch and die may be varied to meet any particular requirements.

lf claim:

-1. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body pro= vided at one end with a character-forming element, and a face positioned to overlie a previously formed character and retain-the same against displacement during the operation of the die.

.2. A. die for forming printing characters in ,a, metal plate, comprising a body provided at one end with a character-forming F element, and means disposed at one side of said character-forming element in position to overlie a previously formed character and retain the same against displacement during the operation of the die.

3. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at one end. a flat face provided with acharacter-forming element, and a ledge disposed adjacent to said face and parallel therewith lac to overlie a previously formed character and retain the same against displacement during the operation of the die.

4. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at its operating end .an open-ended channel provided on the bottom wall thereof with a printing charactenform'ing element, said die being shaped to also provide a ledge parallel with the bottom wall of said channel and extending transversely of the channel in position to,overlie the printing face of a previously formed printing character during the operation of the die.

5. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at its operating end an open-ended channel provided on its bottom wall with a printing character-forming element, said die bein shaped to also provide a ledge parallel with the bottom wall of said channel but more remote from the extremity of the die than said wall and extending transversely of the channel at one end thereof to overlie the printing face of a previously formed printing character during the operation of the die.

6. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body shaped at its operating end to produce an open-ended channel provided on its bottom wall with a character-forming element, and a ledge disposed at one end of the channel to overlie the printing face of a previously formed print-ing character and retain said character against displacement during the operation of the die to form a succeeding character.

7. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, having at one end a flat face provided with a character-forming depres sion, and a ledge disposed adjacent to said face, said ledge being parallel with said face and located below the face a distance equal to the depth of the depression therein.

8. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at its operating end a flat face provided with a character-formmg depression therein and lips at the top and bottom of said face projecting outwardly therefrom, and a ledge disposed adjacent to said face, said led e being parallel with said face and located elow' the-face a distance equal to the depth of the depression therein and below the edges of the lips a distance equalto the height of the printing face of the character above the plane of the plate in which the character is formed.

9. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, having at one end a centrally disposed flat face character-forming depression, and a ledge disposed adjacent to said face, said ledge being parallel with said face and located below the face a distance equal to the depth of the depression therein.

10. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at its operating end a flat face provided with a character-forming element, the die being formed at one side of said face to provide an inclined surface and at the opposite side to provide a flat ledge parallel with, but depressed relatively to, said face.

11. A die for forming printing characters in a metal plate, comprising a body having at its operating end a fiat face provided with a charaoter-forming element, a beveled surface at one side of said element, a depressed ledge at the opposite side thereof, and longitudinally pro ecting lips at the top and bottom of said element.

12. A die for forming printing characters in relief in a metal plate, provided at one end with a character-forming element and having a surface disposed at one side of said element in position to overlie and retain a previously formed printing character against displacement during the operation of the die.

JOSEPH S. DUNCAN.

Witnesses:

WM. 0. BELT, IRA J. WILSON.

rovided with a 

